Hi again,
well true to calling ’em as I see ’em. an update:
Matt is nearly finished and he did a fantastic job, though I’ve no idea to what degree of difficulty it was to accomplish, I’m very happy and I wrote him a long, long letter and was my usual candid self and with any luck and as I told him, and using the obvious intelligence that he has; he must become (to quote Sienfeld) “master of his domain” and that is done hour by hour, then day by day.
That if he truly wants to be a winner, he must realize the only chance is the side that has the odds, and that’s not on the front side of any slot machine (or table for that matter).
the work he did is at http://www.bondedcasinos.com/matt/accountlocker/ if you want to check it out. feel free to register if you want to see inside. not all the bugs are out but he’s very close to getting it as I’ve seen most of it work correctly already.
Matt has IMHO faced up to his misgivings and I think anybody he owes – will eventually be made right if you do two things;
stay on him without using harsh agressive behavior
and accept work in place of money 
that’s just my opinion and all I can say is that I’m very happy even with the cost running twice the original price we started. Looking at it now I feel that I got a deal with what I ended up paying , and frankly would have felt like I took him for a ride if I’d only paid what we started at.
However having said that; I have no idea what the work was worth on an open market, just that I am not feeling ripped-off even if I were to find out tomorrow that I could have had it done for a lesser price somewhere else.
one must consider that Matt also has walked a very web-ignorant webmaster thru this and he probably hasn’t seen the last of that:
I’m thrilled to make this post but I am not sorry I started the thread. It may have done more than just its original purpose, as it has brought up a subject we obviously were going to have to get past at some point; and having brought to light a possible (quality of life: serious) problem that Matt needs to deal with and the sooner the better for sooooo many reasons:
so it might be the thing to turn him around. That would be truly great because I can’t think of a more miserable life than to spend it addicted to gambling.